Morning   “The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the

Lord.” / Proverbs 16:33

If the disposal of the lot is the Lord’s whose is the arrangement of our whole

life? If the simple casting of a lot is guided by him, how much more the

events of our entire life–especially when we are told by our blessed Saviour:

“The very hairs of your head are all numbered: not a sparrow falleth to the

ground without your Father.” It would bring a holy calm over your mind, dear

friend, if you were always to remember this. It would so relieve your mind

from anxiety, that you would be the better able to walk in patience, quiet,

and cheerfulness as a Christian should. When a man is anxious he cannot pray

with faith; when he is troubled about the world, he cannot serve his Master,

his thoughts are serving himself. If you would “seek first the kingdom of God

and his righteousness,” all things would then be added unto you. You are

meddling with Christ’s business, and neglecting your own when you fret about

your lot and circumstances. You have been trying “providing” work and

forgetting that it is yours to obey. Be wise and attend to the obeying, and

let Christ manage the providing. Come and survey your Father’s storehouse, and

ask whether he will let you starve while he has laid up so great an abundance

in his garner? Look at his heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind!

Look at his inscrutable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all,

look up to Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while he pleads,

can your Father deal ungraciously with you? If he remembers even sparrows,

will he forget one of the least of his poor children? “Cast thy burden upon

the Lord, and he will sustain thee. He will never suffer the righteous to be

moved.”

My soul, rest happy in thy low estate,

Nor hope nor wish to be esteem’d or great;

To take the impress of the Will Divine,

Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

 

Evening   “And there was no more sea.” / Revelation 21:1

Scarcely could we rejoice at the thought of losing the glorious old ocean: the

new heavens and the new earth are none the fairer to our imagination, if,

indeed, literally there is to be no great and wide sea, with its gleaming

waves and shelly shores. Is not the text to be read as a metaphor, tinged with

the prejudice with which the Oriental mind universally regarded the sea in the

olden times? A real physical world without a sea it is mournful to imagine, it

would be an iron ring without the sapphire which made it precious. There must

be a spiritual meaning here. In the new dispensation there will be no

division–the sea separates nations and sunders peoples from each other. To

John in Patmos the deep waters were like prison walls, shutting him out from

his brethren and his work: there shall be no such barriers in the world to

come. Leagues of rolling billows lie between us and many a kinsman whom

tonight we prayerfully remember, but in the bright world to which we go there

shall be unbroken fellowship for all the redeemed family. In this sense there

shall be no more sea. The sea is the emblem of change; with its ebbs and

flows, its glassy smoothness and its mountainous billows, its gentle murmurs

and its tumultuous roarings, it is never long the same. Slave of the fickle

winds and the changeful moon, its instability is proverbial. In this mortal

state we have too much of this; earth is constant only in her inconstancy, but

in the heavenly state all mournful change shall be unknown, and with it all

fear of storm to wreck our hopes and drown our joys. The sea of glass glows

with a glory unbroken by a wave. No tempest howls along the peaceful shores of

paradise. Soon shall we reach that happy land where partings, and changes, and

storms shall be ended! Jesus will waft us there. Are we in him or not? This is

the grand question.